FC Biggest Loser Challenge

The last couple weeks have been good, I'm down 7 1/2 lbs since I started. I'm loving the Weight Watchers Points Plus program! How is everyone else doing?
 
Plateauing around the 11lbs mark at the moment.

I'm keeping calorie intake around 1,200-1,400 per day, and I'm confident that I'll bust through that plateau sooner or later :)
 
border01061193059614.jpgOk folks! I know i don't LOOK like a florist, but i am! I hope this picture is not too much for this site, but i am wearing the "official uniform" of an amature ranked bodybuilder, but this was me at 56 years YOUNG in a National Physique Bodybuilding Championship in the Grand Masters Division, Men over 50. BEFORE i ever looked like this, I was a big fat pig at 44, and on a gurney in an emergency room being told i was having a heart attack! I heard this young punk doctor say to the transporting hospital..."we have another obese, middle aged man having a heart attack"...and that was my wake up call. You people...DON'T STOP EATING!!! Just be careful WHAT you eat, ok? Time your meals and get your butts to the gym. If you can't afford a personal trainer (you actually can't afford NOT to hire one) get someone to set up a weight management program and go that way! It is really easy. Once your body gets used to the new way of eating smart and healthy (it takes it about 2 weeks to adjust) all of a sudden folks will say to you..."have you lost wieght?" Besides, the endorphin RUSH after a good workout walking out of a gym facility is worth its weight in cheap red roses at valentines day. THROW YOUR SCALE OUT THE WINDOW!!!! Use your mirror instead and SEE the results reflected back at you, not the fact that you have "lost weight" on the scale. Which for some folks? Can swing from 5 - 15 pounds in WATER WEIGHT in a single day! Remember, diet is simply DIE with a T on the end of it. Its called an eating PLAN, make one and stick to it!

If any of you folks out there need some help with this info, please send me a message and I will try to help you all I can. Peace! DAVE
 
You need to consider the amount of calories you are BURNING a day too! You cut out carbs, your body goes into a metabolic shutdown, and your body will consume that precious protein you call muscle and LEAVE the fat you accumulate on your body. An eating plan is something you make a part of your life. You cannot continue to yoyo back and forth. Rule of thumb? For every pound you loose on a crash diet...you gain back 1.5 pounds back in its place. It's the way our body is designed to survive. If you trick it into thinnking you are starving, it will remember and put back on fat just in case it happens again. Fact, it takes approximately a consumption of 1,800 calories PER DAY just to keep your mind moving, lungs working and moving through the day. Good luck!!! If i can help, let me know. DAVE
 
I'm down another pound since Jan 24 but I'm pretty sure that it's water weight. Speaking of water, I have to take water pills for the next 7 days in order to undergo a CT scan so I expect to see a dramatic weight drop despite having to eat bananas to keep my potassium levels up. This is a pic of me at my chubby-cheeked best; I hope that you'll be seeing less of me soon!
Emily
 

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Plateauing around the 11lbs mark at the moment.

I'm keeping calorie intake around 1,200-1,400 per day, and I'm confident that I'll bust through that plateau sooner or later :)

Ryan, I don't think you are getting enough calories. How tall are you? You should probably be consuming more like 1800 calories at least. Try it for a couple of days, bet you start losing again.
 
Dave, do you have any advise for someone who doesn't eat enough? Except force myself to eat, which is not easy to do.

I generally eat once a day. My whole life it has been really really hard for me to eat 3 meals in one day, let alone 5 or 6. I have tried just snacking on healthy foods throughout the day, but even just a small amount of food makes me feel so full for so long. I end up having like 2 small snacks/meals and I can't go anymore for the rest of the day.

For example, today for lunch, I ate a small salad which consist of lettuce, grilled chicken, a bit of shredded cheese, NO dressing (I don't like any) and a small hot sandwich with cheese and chicken. That's it, thats all i've had, I know I should go into the kitchen right now and eat something, but even just the thought of it makes my stomach turn (and not because it is empty)

I know I am not giving my body even close to what it needs each day, but I have never figured out a way to eat like a normal human!
 
Dave, do you have any advise for someone who doesn't eat enough? Except force myself to eat, which is not easy to do.

QUOTE]
So Carrieann,
Are you very thin? I always wondered what it would be like to be the kind of person who doesn't care about food. I guess it's not all it's cracked up to be. Have you ever been tested for Celiac? I have a friend who has it and was very much like you describe yourself before she went on a gluton free diet. Might be worth checking into.
 
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Helen, while I am not very thin, I am not overweight either. I currently weigh somewhere around 145. I was always very very thin, then I got pregnant. he he. I weighed 98 pounds when I became pregnant for my first.

I have, like everyone, my problem areas. Although my youngest is 6 I still have the "baby belly" I have extremely plateaued with my weight and I know it is because of the way I eat.

Funny you bring up Celiac. A member of my family a few weeks ago, called me to tell me she had tested positive for Celiac. She was letting as many family members know that she could as it is very very hereditary. I have done some reading on it, but the symptoms are so wide spread that I think anyone could read them and think, that's me.

But I do plan on asking for a test when I see my doctor in 2 weeks.

And your right being the type of person who doesn't have an appetite is not all its cracked up to be. I have gone as long as 3 weeks straight with no food at all. Not a very healthy way to live.
 
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Hi Carrieann, and thanks for the question. It is dynamic on so many levels. First, you should definately see a doctor to find out if you suffer from Celiac OR anything else. It could be hormonal, ya never know. You can go to: http://www.celiaccentral.org/Celiac-Disease/21/?gclid=CIfY983236YCFRiAgwodThlG2g and read all about it. The best thing is to learn as much as you can. Also, I don't recommend anyone for that matter, to go on line to try and diagnose yourself. This board is a forum for sharing information. You should always seek professional help where ever you can, with someone you can actually trust.

So, lets look at this another way. Think of yourself as a furnace. You have to light the fire (your metabolism) and keep throwing logs on to keep it burning bright and hot. If you DON'T EAT but once a day, you are already in such a caloric deficit I can't even imagine how you can work holidays in a florist! It's like you are starving yourself.

In my late 30's....I remember for a long time, I could NOT NOT NOT eat breakfast. The thought would turn my stomach. It was only until I realized that my insulin levels were running crazy and I would go for that "power bar" to get my sugar rush, which only lasted an hour. I also drank LOTS of coffee on and empty stomach. Then the "heart attack scare" happened, and it was only when I simply started eating a hot cereal in the morning that my body began to respond.

I found my appetite growing stronger. Even now, I have 4 eggs for breakfast, 2 whole, 2 just egg whites. One serving of Coachs oats and I am good to go till around noon. Lunch is a simple sandwich of sprouted grains bread, some sort of meat, like ham, turkey or beef, topped off with a couple slices of tomato and a slice of cheese. If you break all that down, you are getting all you need for a meal, and it keeps me going till mid afternoon, when i have a protein shake (265 k/cal) and give that time to digest, then after closing my studio, head to the gym for my hour workout! Home again, and maybe have a small piece of chicken, fresh veggies, complex carbs, like rice or sweet potato. Thats it! It is not rocket science. Oh, on Sunday? It's a day of life celebration. I always indulge myself in cookes, cake or any other thing that I normally omit during the week, so I use it as a reward for at least just trying to stay on track. No guilt, I got enough of that from my Catholic upbringing.

Often times people make it so darn difficult to LISTEN to their body and give it what it NEEDS. If its screaming for CHEESE, then listen. Give it cheese. Not to get too technical, and I already have mentioned metabolic SHUTDOWN. That's really a huge part of your problem...you are simply NOT getting the LOGS you need to sustain a fire. If you loose too much muscle mass, sometimes you can be a trip away from the hospital with a simple strain of the flu. Your body is simply not strong enough to get sick, and then stop eating. Eventually you will run out of LOGS to burn...then what? Give this some strong consideration. You can get around this, I know you can! But bottom line? It's all up to YOU...we only get so many days in a life, and our responsibility is to be good to others and be good to ourselves. I wish you all the luck, now get moving and let us know what the doc says! PEACE....DAVE
 
Thank you Dave for your words of advise. I have told my doctor about the way I eat, but she doesn't seem to be too concerned, but I see her again soon and I plan on pushing for the Celiac testing.

Breakfast, arggh, turn my stomach is an understatement. I can't even watch my kids eat in the morning. I have tried in the past to force myself to eat in the morning, for a few weeks thinking it would get better the more I did it. Every time I ate, it came right back up. The earliest I seem to be able to eat is 11am and usually I don't eat until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.

I go through periods of time when the thought of food makes me feel ill. The smell of food makes me feel worse, and it is extremely hard to make myself eat anything at all. This can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to even a few months.
I have had these "cycles" ever since I can remember. My mom said even as an infant I would refuse to drink my bottle.

Its funny Dave you talk about needing to listen to our bodies. Mine very seldom tells me its hungry, I have to remember its time to eat. Then there are those times that every food makes me extremely nauseous. So I think that part of my body that tells me what I need is broken. I have to focus more on mind over matter, I have to think about eating more often and ignore my body when it tells me no thanks, I don't want any food today.
 
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Well, I weighed yesterday and was a little discouraged. In the last 3 weeks, after the downs and ups, it's come down to having lost only lost 3 lbs.
Then when I thought about it, I feel okay, it's 3 lbs. down, a pound a week, so as long as I keep that up, it's good.
I can get back into full swing with the exercising, as my back is back in shape now. I changed my workout somewhat, since I was starting to get bored with it, and now I'm looking forward to it.
 
Ryan, I don't think you are getting enough calories. How tall are you? You should probably be consuming more like 1800 calories at least. Try it for a couple of days, bet you start losing again.

My BMR is around 1900, and I generally have a very sedentary day (many, many hours at a desk). The MyFitnessPal software calculated my target range at 1,470 per day, but now that I'm actually keeping an eye on snacks and portions I often haven't hit the target. I've been trying lately to make sure that I'm at or just above the goal because I don't want to put my body into starvation mode (the software also warns about this every time I miss my goal :))
 
No change again for me this week- But that is my pattern. I'm used to it now. I will go weeks with out loosing anything and then all the sudden I start losing again. It's been before Christmas that I lost anything major. But I'm hanging in there.
 
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Maybe time for a 2nd opinion?

Yeah, it might very well be. She put me on a horrible horrible medication for my migraines. The side effects were intense. When I complained to her about it she said, nope, it can't be the medicine.
FIVE of these side effects had to do with my vision. When I saw my eye dr. he showed me a medical book that list all the problems I was having as side effects to this drug. Told my dr. about it and she said, no thats wrong, this medicine doesn't have those side effects.

Last month I went to a neurologist, told him what I was taking and he couldn't believe I was on such a high dose, told him about my side effects and he agreed that all of them were from the drug. He took me off and they are all gone now.

Oh yeah and one of the major side effects was that it decreased your appetite. Great idea, give someone who naturally doesn't have an appetite an appetite suppressant.


I had an appointment scheduled with her for tomorrow morning, but we have a snow storm coming, so I rescheduled for mid March.

Maybe time to start looking around for a new dr. Argg I hate that.